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Diversity in the Art Classroom
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by Steve Willis
Missouri State University
Springfield, Missouri
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| | Embracing Otherness
Diversity is just as prevalent in American art education as it is in our culture and comes into the classroom in obvious as well as in less-qualifiable ways. Diversity includes the obvious areas of race, ethnicity, and socioeconomics, which are important considerations for any educator, but in the art classroom, teachers must embrace diverse learning styles, differing languages, gender issues, and a proclivity for the visual language. Otherness is an important dimension in the art classroom.
When a teacher is developing curriculum to embrace all students, problems of equity in diversity are important considerations. Equity may be especially problematic when high school students enter AP courses, in which the curriculum is directed at college-level expectations. I have become increasingly convinced over the years that art educators can embrace a wide variety of student demographics and develop the strategies for success for all students within the rigorous expectations of the AP class. However, a particular emphasis on sensitivity by the teacher in relationship to student diversity may be needed to insure success with students who may struggle with certain aspects of the AP requirements. With teachers celebrating student differences and focusing on the concepts required for success, students can become empowered through their AP Studio Art experiences.
I strongly encourage all art teachers to look for the potential within each student, and by finding the positive aspects embrace each student's individuality through the breadth of approaches used for success in the AP Program. The AP Program does not prescribe a certain curriculum that teachers must follow but supports an individualized program that allows for growth and exploration. Through this pedagogy, teachers can find a strong voice within the class for their students and for themselves. By understanding the expectations of the portfolio examination and the adjudication process, and by gaining familiarity with examples from previous successful portfolios, all students generally achieve a higher percentage of success. Understanding the challenge is the first step in achieving the goal. When there is a clear pathway for students to follow, including a working knowledge of the AP evaluative rubrics, students from diverse backgrounds may embrace a high level of success in the art classroom, one that they have not experienced in their other courses.
Developing an Inventive Approach
Certainly there are challenges for art teachers as they develop the AP curriculum to include a wide variety of student participants, especially if there are inadequate funds or facilities, or lack of understanding and support from the school's administration or local community. But the inventive art teacher can find success without expensive materials or elaborate facilities. In a structured and substantive art program, teachers of diverse students can transform apparent adversity into distinct advantage by focusing on individuals' strengths. Students who are physically impaired as well as students who may be restricted financially can use alternative materials in a successful manner. Since the AP Program does not prescribe a particular style, material, or technique in order to be successful, an inventive and imaginative approach can foster success in a nontraditional manner. Inventive instruction with alternative approaches to media or technique may have immense potential yet unrealized in the classroom.
A successful strategy may be to review the images previously submitted to the AP Program (available on AP Central in the Exams section) and modify an approach, blending images, techniques, or materials to produce a successful and previously unimagined artwork. Avoiding more common modernist approaches by embracing non-Western and postmodern paradigms may prove most beneficial for students of diversity. Some strategies might include differing social and cultural understandings and aesthetics, using materials in an innovative manner, or combining the student's intrinsic desire for empowerment with available materials that have been overlooked by less-inventive people. It is my experience that many college professors embrace the same type of experiential and open-ended learning. In fact, many times college professors who teach the equivalent course challenge their students to use nontraditional materials in a personally invigorating manner.
Students who have been diagnosed with learning disabilities can be fully empowered in the AP classroom by the art teacher who finds a parallel with materials that align directly with a specific learning disability. For example, a student who has difficulty maintaining an artistic focus for long periods may find success with the quickness of application by working with watercolor, charcoal, oil pastels, or markers to manufacture an image more directly emotive than representational. In such a situation, it might prove more fruitful to have a student work on images that are more experiential and personal to replace the more time-intensive, photographically rendered still life, landscape, or portrait.
Students and teachers, in order to balance expensive art materials, might find success by using found materials that have been discarded by the nonartist. Amazing artwork can be produced with such materials in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional approaches. Even though storage may be problematic, the required slides can be taken frequently during the course instead of at the end, and then students can remove the artwork from the classroom. Ongoing slide documentation reduces the need for excessive amounts of storage.
Some very interesting and successful artwork submitted in the AP portfolio comes from what would appear to be an impossible situation in an inner-city or rural school that may not have the advantage of a large working space with an abundance of materials and the convenient museum in the neighborhood. The AP Program does not prescribe size, process, or material in the submission of the examination materials. Small artworks, done with limited materials, can find success as easily as large surfaces with expensive materials. Many times, I have seen exceptional AP artworks that were completed on corrugated cardboard or brown butcher paper with graphite and white board chalk. It is the quality of the student's artwork that is paramount, not the quality of the raw materials. Verve is not contained in the medium, but is translated by the student.
Representing Rigor and Respect
In closing, it is important to remember that it is the quality of the teaching and the commitment of the students that most frequently generate success in the AP course. Teachers may dream of an idyllic environment with highly motivated students, but those may not be the foundational ingredients for success. I firmly believe that the AP Program is for every person who wishes to accept the rigor of college curricula.
Every successful AP art teacher I know teaches the concepts of visual literacy and invents strategies for individual student success. When the students, regardless of diversity, understand that the teacher has both rigor and respect, the road to success is traveled with determination and enthusiasm, gaining confidence with whatever materials are available. Success in the AP Program is not about who has what, but what the student can visually communicate with the available materials. A famous martial arts teacher, Gichin Funikoshi, said that it is the responsibility of the student to surpass the teacher, and it is the responsibility of the teacher to ensure that it happens. Ram Dass believed that it is the responsibility of the teacher to create an environment conducive to learning. Between the two, success in the AP Studio Art program can be assured regardless of the diversity found in the art classroom environment.
Steve Willis has taught studio art and art education for 29 years in Florida and Missouri. Presently he works in the Art Education Program at Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri. Additionally, he has worked as an AP Studio Art Reader, Table Leader, Exam Leader, Development Committee member, and College Board consultant for teacher training. He has written extensively about art education and Native American topics.
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